According to Somsack Sikhounmuong, the J.Crew crew were doing some serious navel-gazing this season. As Sikhounmuong, the brand’s head of womenswear, put it, the idea was to really dial in on the J.Crew signatures—chino, menswear-inspired shirting, and the staple palette of pink, white, blue, and khaki—and then turn up the drama. What jumped out at the presentation today was the emphasis on eveningwear-like flourishes: There were kicky little shorts in pastel satin, gossamer trousers as voluminous as ballgown skirts, wafts of khaki-toned tulle, a mariner stripe sweater all in sequins, a ruffled floor-length wrap skirt in men’s shirting stripe, and more. There was something deeply zeitgeis-ty about this zhuzzed-up approach to daywear: After all, in the era of Instagram, isn’t every day a red-carpet event, a photo opportunity?

The zeitgeist-iness extended to the models cast in the presentation. J.Crew eschewed professionals and showed their new clothes on friends and family of all shapes and sizes (some of the models were sourced from within the design team, even). Much like the collection’s emphasis on J.Crew basics, this was navel-gazing in a nice way, and it reflected the fact that J.Crew is a brand that serves a wide range of consumers. Seeing one of Sikhounmuong’s consiglieri clad in a shirting-striped apron dress amplified the charm of the McCardell-esque piece; likewise, his pals dressed in paint-splattered chino shorts and pants. These weren’t clothes for photo ops; just the kind of things a woman is happy to wear when the cameras are off.